Dupefluencer

PRESENTED BY MARKETING AGAINST THE GRAIN

Happy Tuesday, Future Party. If you were up very early this morning in the Western Hemisphere, you may have gotten the opportunity to see a blood moon. That’s because there was a total lunar eclipse, meaning the Earth was perfectly positioned between the Sun and the Moon, giving the lunar surface a deep red color. For our Eastern Hemisphere friends, you’ll get your chance to see the blood moon tonight. Keep those eyes peeled!

Instagram and TikTok are testing tools that automatically offer users recommendations for products similar to those shown in their photos or videos.

Why It Hurts: Product recommendations are the financial backbone of many influencers, with affiliate links and sponsored posts positioned as a sign-off that they personally approve of the products. But when platforms begin recommending products automatically, it could not only make it seem like an influencer approves of them… but also hurt their business.

Behind The Products: Instagram and TikTok appear to be inadvertently hijacking the trust influencers have built with their followers.

Checkout: Both platforms said the features are in beta, are being used to collect feedback, and don’t generate any commission for the platform… but influencers are raising the alarm about potential reputational damage. Fashion influencer Julia Berolzheimer was notified by her followers that the “Shop the Look” button appeared on posts where she was already recommending products. She wrote on Substack that “my followers were being shown cheap knockoffs and random items from brands I’ve never heard of, attached to my image, under my name.”

In other words, it’s not a great look.

Next Post: With the features appearing on posts from people who don’t even have followings, Instagram and TikTok may be trying to commercialize everyone’s content. When everyone is an influencer, no one is.

61% of marketers say this is the biggest marketing shift in decades.

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A handful of teams at Uber have developed a digital double of CEO Dara Khosrowshahi.

The Big Picture: The existence of an unsanctioned “Dara AI” demonstrates that anyone can be digitally cloned if there is enough publicly available data to train it. Uber’s legal team is likely already examining potential loopholes.

Behind The Code: Khosrowshahi revealed the existence of Dara AI on a recent episode of Steven Bartlett’s The Diary Of A CEO.

Final Prompt: Creating an AI clone of your boss is an ironic twist on what’s happening across organizations in many industries — replacing flesh-and-blood workers with chatbots. While it’s highly doubtful this is some ploy to convince Uber’s board that it no longer needs a CEO, it could prove that automation is possible even at the executive level.

Hey, even Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski and Zoom CEO Eric Yuan have used AI versions of themselves in their most recent investor calls. Wild.

The Future: CEOs likely don’t need to worry about digital displacement just yet, but it wouldn’t be surprising if consulting firms like McKinsey and Accenture — companies paid for feedback and insights — begin replacing staff with proprietary AI systems.

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65.1% of you voted Concerned — don’t want fewer distinct studio voices in yesterday’s poll: How do you feel about Paramount and Warner Bros. joining forces?

“Concern increased by Paramount’s recent history of bending news coverage to appease the administration.”

“For me, all buyouts are cause for concern. All the leverage they require creates huge debt. Then prices get raised to pay off that debt. At least stockholders make money.”

“As long as I don’t have to pay for another streaming service, I don’t care.”

“If this is what they have to do to survive, then okay, though I wish they could both stand on their own. I’m just happy that Netflix lost out on this deal!”

Let’s keep the conversation going. Join Poll Of The Day, so your opinions can shine. Discover how your views line up with your peers’, check out cool insights, and have some fun. It’s data with personality.

🤝 Paramount announced it will combine HBO Max and Paramount+, but the HBO team will be allowed to operate independently.

📺 Speaking of Paramount, the company also said it has no plans to offload any of its cable networks… and it has a lot of them.

🎥 Artists Equity, the revenue-sharing indie studio founded by Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, has struck a streaming-only movie deal with Netflix… while maintaining a theatrical-only deal with Sony.

🤖 AI data centers are now being built in the Arctic Circle. That’s one way to keep those GPUs cool.

👨‍⚖️ The US Supreme Court has declined to hear a case arguing that AI-generated art should be eligible for copyright. That’s a win for humans.

👓 A privacy-focused Android app called Nearby Glasses will alert users when someone wearing smart glasses is nearby.

💰 PayPay is looking to go public in the US at a $13.4 billion valuation, potentially making it the biggest IPO by a Japanese company on an American stock exchange.

🗳️ Kalshi has inked a deal with the Associated Press to license its election data, beginning with the 2026 midterms.

📱 X wants users to drop the hashtags in exchange for a “Paid Partnership” label.